


Hot Chocolate

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 18:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's the little things that Peeta remembers. And sometimes he wonders whether he'll ever be able to bring back the bigger things. (A sequel to "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/384271">Breaking Bread")</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Chocolate

There’s flour everywhere. Broken eggshells litter the counter, splashes of milk here and there—and outright puddles in some areas. Buttercup would have a field day lapping it all up.

 

A trail of sugar snakes its way towards the mixing bowl, which is crusted with dried frosting. It’s a pale yellow. Delicate, like the feathers on a newborn chick. My feet making burping sounds on the kitchen tile as I make my way towards it, the thin soles of my boots lifting off from the sticky floor. I try to avoid the spots where the spills haven’t been completely mopped up, but there are still spots that are invisible to the naked eye, and I find myself having to peel my feet off the floor with each step.

 

There’s heat coming from the oven. I see the warm orange flow coming from it through the opaque window, heat fogging up the glass. I’m bending down to look inside and try to guess what it is that’s baking in there when I hear movement behind me and I straighten right away, feeling a faint sense of guilt, as though I’ve just been caught red-handed doing something I wasn’t supposed to.

 

Which, in a way, I guess I am.

 

“Hi.”

 

“Hey,” he says.

 

I clear my throat and glance towards the door. “I, um… it wasn’t locked, so I… is this ok?”

 

Peeta smiles and wipes his hands on his apron in a somewhat absent-minded manner. They look raw, as though he’s been working with them all day and washing flour off them repeatedly. A lot, if the mess on his counter is any indication.

 

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he says. A faint blush stains his cheeks. “I’m not usually this messy.” There’s a pause and his face goes from pink to scarlet. “Or maybe I am. I guess I shouldn’t be so certain about that.”

 

I wouldn’t have known how to react to the comment if he hadn’t said it with a grin. I relax a little and give him my own smile, then shrug the game bag off my shoulder and loosen the tie, taking out the squirrel I’d shot just for him. I’m not really sure where to put it, finally deciding to lay it on top of a layer of eggshells. “I went hunting this morning. I thought you could use some stew meat.”

 

“Thanks. That was really thoughtful of you.”

 

Not nearly as thoughtful as him bringing me fresh bread every single morning, I want to say. But the words get stuck in my throat.

 

“Been baking, I see.”

 

The grin widens. “What gave it away?”

 

The timer goes off. He walks to the oven and opens the door, grabbing a dishrag before he pulls out a steaming baking sheet and lays it on the stove. I can see from here that they’re a row of cookies, but they look pale and crumbly; some have already cracked and disintegrated into several pieces. He pokes at one or two with his finger and presses his lips together in a taut line.

 

They’re no good. And that’s when I notice that there are three or four other baking sheets all stacked up on the far end of the counter, all with broken pieces of pale, crumbly cookies.

 

There’s a wet splat in the next instant. Startled, I look up to see his arm is still extended; he’s just thrown the dishrag into the sink and tugs off his apron, crumpling it into a ball before he throws that into the sink, too.

 

“Peeta?”

 

He has his back to me and doesn’t face me for a long time, only bringing a hand up to the back of his neck, his shoulders tensing before they slump forward.

 

“I can’t get these right,” he says finally. “I’ve been trying all morning.” Slowly, he walks over to the sink and retrieves his apron, smoothing out the creases before he turns and leans against the counter. “My father’s cookies. I used to bake these—ten, fifteen dozen of them easily. I could do them in my sleep. And now…”

 

I shift my feet. This would be the right moment to say something comforting, something to reassure him, but not for the first time, words fail me. They tend to run away from me at the most critical moments. So I settle for approaching him, for leaning against the counter right beside him, my shoulder touching his.

 

“Some things… it’s like they’re hard-wired. That cake I baked for Finnick and Annie—it’s like my hands knew exactly what to do. How much to measure out, what temperature to set the oven, when to take it out…” He reaches behind him to take a cookie, laying it in the palm of his hand and prodding it, sighing when it breaks up at the slightest pressure. “Dr. Aurelius says the little things will come back in time. As long as I don’t force it.”

 

“Easy for him to say, isn’t it?” I say. “I mean, how many times has he been hijacked and tried to reconstruct his memory from scratch?”

 

He laughs and turns to look at me. “He does have a lot of advice for someone without a lot of firsthand experience, doesn’t he?”

 

The sound of his laughter brings out a flutter in my stomach. I haven’t felt anything close to that in a long time. Longer than I can even remember.

 

He falls silent after a few minutes. He’s staring at the floor, tracing the tip of his prosthetic foot on the grout between the tiles.

 

“Katniss… what if it never comes back? All of it, I mean?” He looks up, and I’m unprepared for the pain I see in his eyes. Unprepared for the feeling of someone having punched me hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. “What if all I’ll ever be able to get back are the bits and pieces? Little things that hardly matter, like… the fact that I always part my hair on the left side or I crack the eggs with one hand… or that I like to dip bread in hot chocolate?”

 

I smile. “You taught me that, you know.”

 

“What?”

 

“Dipping bread in hot chocolate. I do that every time I have the stuff now.”

 

The corners of his mouth slowly lift up, and he looks off into the distance, as though the memory is gradually taking shape in his mind, dull and without a trace of embellishment. He knows to trust it.

 

He knows to trust me.

 

I reach over to place my hand on his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

 

“The little things… they matter. Sometimes, it’s those details that matter the most.”

 

“I just don’t want to lose the big things altogether,” he says softly. His voice cracks ever so slightly, setting off a tiny ache from deep in my ribcage. “If I never get them back, then… what’ll be left of me?”

 

“I’ll help you get them back.” I pause, debating whether or not to say the next words that come to mind. Wondering how he’ll interpret them, what meaning they’ll have, what weight they carry. But in the end, I know he needs to hear them. “And I’ll help you make new ones. Better ones, that no one can touch.”

 

He looks up at me, the clouds in his eyes shifting, clearing. There’s relief that’s settled in them. Trust. The knowledge that I mean what I say. That I’m not going anywhere. That the twisted Katniss he encountered in his corrupted memories is nowhere to be found.

 

And in her place is the Katniss who will do everything in her power to bring him back. Because I need him to come back. For me.

 

“I do remember how to make the cheese buns,” he says. Then he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that way that takes my breath away.  

 

“That’s a start, then,” I say. “Maybe you can teach me. We can make them together.”

 

“Help me clean up and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

 

I laugh and reach for the dish rag.


End file.
